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Sunday, 12 October 2008

Good times breed bad habits – as we have all discovered, or – as the gentlemen on the left observed, “prosperity doth best discover vice; adversity doth best discover virtue”. More about him in a minute.

Here are few things I hope will be curbed in the coming months.

1. Wankers running tinpot businesses who call themselves “Chief Executive Officer”.2. Anyone not in the armed forces or something similar calling themselves any kind of Officer, especially a Chief Officer3. Idiots talking about Brand Values, Brand Equity and so on who don’t know what a brand is.4. In the same vein, twats explaining that it doesn’t matter that you got no replies, it affected awareness.5. Tarts of both sexes who never opened a book on marketing being employed at agencies and ending up running them - often into the ground.6. Ditto at clients 7. Ignoramuses who keep asking me if long copy works.8. The same fools asking me “does this work when selling to business?” 9. Overpaid tossers getting jobs as marketing directors, changing things for the sake of it, screwing everything up then getting another job. 10. This especially in respect of financial institutions like Barclays Bank11. People who know less than the square root of fuck-all about marketing being allowed to employ marketing directors, and not checking their credentials properly, which explains the above12. The phrase Human Resources, and the practice of employing people in that role who have all the humanity of a Gestapo officer.13. Good company names being replaced by ones nobody understands – e. g. Aviva and LV (which used to mean Luncheon Vouchers – and probably still does to most of what used to be Liverpool Victoria’s elderly customers.) See 9 above.14. Big organisations paying millions to have stupid designs nobody understands disfiguring the streets – e.g. the Olympic logo.15. All compliance departments, who should be violently assaulted every hour until they realise their pestilential activities are only supportable if somebody sells something, and that neither their job nor their limited talents run to writing copy.16. All use of the word strategy and variations applied to trivial matters like what should go in a headline.17. Payment of ludicrous sums to anybody who specialises in anything “online” because the buffoons who cough up don’t realise that customers don’t grow a second head when they sit in front of a computer.18. Witless, cod-philosophical slogans plastered all over the world, as in “Make the most of now” or “I am who I am because of everyone” – maybe more appropriately rephrased as “I write this kind of drivel because I’m an arsehole.”19. All of us telling people what we’re doing now on those bloody social sites as in “I’ve just farted” or “Drayton Bird has just farted and hopes nobody notices”.20. “Gurus” who keep telling me I’ll be disgustingly rich in 3 months if I only buy their astonishingly expensive set of DVDs, plus notes with free stuff worth three zillion dollars/turn up to/listen to their free seminar – and “don’t believe those other crooks who say the same thing, ‘cos I’m the honest one.”

Oh. Who is the gentleman in fancy dress? Sir Francis Bacon, whose essays are among the best-written things in the English language. Some people think he wrote Shakespeare. He was Attorney-General to Elizabeth 1 and James 1.

He also nearly had his head chopped off for taking bribes – but he was a lawyer, after all. His defence was he took the bribes but did nothing. What a scamp. He would have done well in Nigeria. Or Italy for that matter, and quite possibly working for Ken Livingstone, London’s cheeky former mayor.

Good times breed bad habits – as we have all discovered, or – as the gentlemen on the left observed, “prosperity doth best discover vice; adversity doth best discover virtue”. More about him in a minute.

Here are few things I hope will be curbed in the coming months.

1. Wankers running tinpot businesses who call themselves “Chief Executive Officer”.2. Anyone not in the armed forces or something similar calling themselves any kind of Officer, especially a Chief Officer3. Idiots talking about Brand Values, Brand Equity and so on who don’t know what a brand is.4. In the same vein, twats explaining that it doesn’t matter that you got no replies, it affected awareness.5. Tarts of both sexes who never opened a book on marketing being employed at agencies and ending up running them - often into the ground.6. Ditto at clients 7. Ignoramuses who keep asking me if long copy works.8. The same fools asking me “does this work when selling to business?” 9. Overpaid tossers getting jobs as marketing directors, changing things for the sake of it, screwing everything up then getting another job. 10. This especially in respect of financial institutions like Barclays Bank11. People who know less than the square root of fuck-all about marketing being allowed to employ marketing directors, and not checking their credentials properly, which explains the above12. The phrase Human Resources, and the practice of employing people in that role who have all the humanity of a Gestapo officer.13. Good company names being replaced by ones nobody understands – e. g. Aviva and LV (which used to mean Luncheon Vouchers – and probably still does to most of what used to be Liverpool Victoria’s elderly customers.) See 9 above.14. Big organisations paying millions to have stupid designs nobody understands disfiguring the streets – e.g. the Olympic logo.15. All compliance departments, who should be violently assaulted every hour until they realise their pestilential activities are only supportable if somebody sells something, and that neither their job nor their limited talents run to writing copy.16. All use of the word strategy and variations applied to trivial matters like what should go in a headline.17. Payment of ludicrous sums to anybody who specialises in anything “online” because the buffoons who cough up don’t realise that customers don’t grow a second head when they sit in front of a computer.18. Witless, cod-philosophical slogans plastered all over the world, as in “Make the most of now” or “I am who I am because of everyone” – maybe more appropriately rephrased as “I write this kind of drivel because I’m an arsehole.”19. All of us telling people what we’re doing now on those bloody social sites as in “I’ve just farted” or “Drayton Bird has just farted and hopes nobody notices”.20. “Gurus” who keep telling me I’ll be disgustingly rich in 3 months if I only buy their astonishingly expensive set of DVDs, plus notes with free stuff worth three zillion dollars/turn up to/listen to their free seminar – and “don’t believe those other crooks who say the same thing, ‘cos I’m the honest one.”

Oh. Who is the gentleman in fancy dress? Sir Francis Bacon, whose essays are among the best-written things in the English language. Some people think he wrote Shakespeare. He was Attorney-General to Elizabeth 1 and James 1.

He also nearly had his head chopped off for taking bribes – but he was a lawyer, after all. His defence was he took the bribes but did nothing. What a scamp. He would have done well in Nigeria. Or Italy for that matter, and quite possibly working for Ken Livingstone, London’s cheeky former mayor.

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Drayton Bird Marketing Articles

The man Bird and his sad story

The CIM named Drayton one of 50 people who shaped today’s marketing.
And David Ogilvy said he “knows more about direct marketing than anyone in the world.” But don't blame him for all the crap you get sent.
He published his first novel, “Some rats run faster” when 27. Hardly anyone read this brilliant work as it had virtually no plot. 4 more books followed: “Commonsense Direct and Digital Marketing” – out in 17 languages; “Salesletters that sell” & “Marketing Insights and Outrages” and "Direct Marketing for Lawyers".
He's written over 1,000 columns, spoken in 50 countries and worked with many leading brands, incl. Amex, BA, Hargreaves Lansdown, Mercedes, Microsoft, Nestle, P & G, IBM, Unilever and Visa.
In 1977, he and two partners set up Trenear-Harvey, Bird & Watson, sold in l985 to O&M. As Vice-Chairman and Creative Director, he helped O&M Direct become the world's largest DM agency network, and was elected to the worldwide Ogilvy Group board.
He now runs Drayton Bird Associates and has interests in 3 other firms. The ones he never visits do much better.
This blog shows what all that has done to his head.